CHAPTER II.
He was to see her daily during the summer, breathe the same air with her, commune with her familiarly, and in a measure share the same experiences. This had been all Sidney Martin’s thought, from the time he left Vashti Lansing haloed by the yellow after-glow, until the Monday following, when he entered the avenue leading up to the Lansing house.
This time he and his belongings had been driven over from Brixton. The drive had been long—a good ten miles, over dusty mountain roads, between fields crisped and parched by the pitiless sun; but at every turn of the road Sidney’s fanciful imagination had figured forth a radiant form which beckoned him on. How sweet the welcoming sign would be when the farewell gesture had been so gracious! And now he had arrived. When, where would he see her first? Would the glory of the setting sun have left her face? Would she—and then he saw her.
In the wide angle made by the wing of the house there grew a great mass of hollyhocks, perfumeless, passionless flowers, fit for the garden of Proserpine. They were in full bloom. Not the pin-cushiony, double flowers of the “improved”—save the mark!—hollyhock, but the exquisite, transparent, cup-like single ones. In every shade, from crimson to pink, from salmon to white, from lemon to a rich wine colour, they grew there, stiff, stately, severe, their greyish green foliage softening the brilliancy of their blossoms. Scores of yellowish-white butterflies fluttered about them, sometimes entering boldly to the heart of the flowers, sometimes poising upon the button-like buds which crowned the tapering stems. And in the midst of this pure sweetness stood Vashti.
Sidney sprang from the musty carriage and went towards her, going, as it seemed to him, into a more exalted atmosphere at a step.
And as he saw her then, he saw her ever afterwards—not, perhaps, wholly as man looks at woman, rather as the enthusiast views perfection, as the devotee adores the Faith made visible. He saw her not as an individual woman, but as the glorious typification of her sex.
Ah, mysterious medley of mind and body! Ah, pitiful delusion which suggests a sequence of spirit and shape!
She gave him her hand cordially enough, not a small hand, but one exquisitely proportioned to her stature.